Linda Ronstadt

Linda Maria Ronstadt was born on July 15, 1946, in Tucson, Arizona, the third of four children of Gilbert Ronstadt, a machinery merchant who operated the F. Ronstadt Co., and Ruth Mary Ronstadt, a homemaker. She was raised on a 10-acre family ranch alongside her siblings Peter, Michael, and Gretchen, and received a Roman Catholic upbringing. Her father came from a pioneering Arizona ranching family of Mexican descent with a German male ancestor; her great-grandfather, Friedrich August Ronstadt, emigrated from Hanover, Germany in the 1840s, settling eventually in Tucson after time in Sonora, Mexico. Her grandfather, Federico José María Ronstadt, was a local businessman and wagon maker whose contributions to the city were recognized in 1991 when Tucson dedicated its central transit terminal to him. On her mother's side, Ronstadt's maternal grandfather, Lloyd Groff Copeman, was a prolific inventor holding nearly 700 patents, credited with developing an early electric toaster, the grease gun, the first electric stove, an early form of the microwave oven, and a flexible rubber ice cube tray. Her mother, Ruth Mary, was of German, English, and Dutch ancestry and was raised in Flint, Michigan.

Ronstadt began establishing her professional career in the mid-1960s as part of California's emerging folk rock and country rock movements. She joined Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards as lead singer of the folk-rock trio the Stone Poneys before launching a solo career with the 1969 release Hand Sown ... Home Grown, described as the first alternative country record by a female recording artist. During those early years she toured with The Doors, Neil Young, and Jackson Browne, among others, and began contributing her voice to other artists' albums. Her commercial breakthrough came with a series of chart-topping albums including Heart Like a Wheel, Simple Dreams, and Living in the USA, which established her as a leading concert draw and one of the top-grossing performers of the decade. She appeared six times on the cover of Rolling Stone and on the covers of both Newsweek and Time.

Throughout the 1980s, Ronstadt expanded her work across multiple musical directions. She collaborated with conductor Nelson Riddle and recorded with composer Philip Glass. Her multi-platinum albums from the decade include Mad Love, What's New, Canciones de Mi Padre, and Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind. It was also during this period that she brought her talents to Broadway, appearing in productions between 1981 and 1988. Her performance in The Pirates of Penzance earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical in 1981, and she later appeared on Broadway in Canciones de mi Padre. She continued to record and tour into the following decades, releasing albums including Winter Light and Hummin' to Myself before announcing her retirement in 2011.

Ronstadt has recorded in a wide range of genres, including rock, folk, pop, country, and soul, and has lent her voice to more than 120 albums. Collaborators over the course of her career include Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, James Ingram, Aaron Neville, Bette Midler, Frank Zappa, Flaco Jiménez, Warren Zevon, Gram Parsons, Neil Young, Paul Simon, Johnny Cash, and Nelson Riddle, among many others. She released 24 studio albums and 15 compilation or greatest hits albums, charting 38 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100, with 21 reaching the top 40, ten reaching the top 10, and one, "You're No Good," reaching number one. She also charted 36 albums on the US Billboard albums chart, including ten top-10 albums and three number-one albums. In the United Kingdom, her duets "Somewhere Out There" with James Ingram and "Don't Know Much" with Aaron Neville peaked at numbers 8 and 2 respectively, and "Blue Bayou" reached number 35 on the UK Singles Chart.

Among her many honors, Ronstadt has received 11 Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, and an ALMA Award. She was awarded the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. In April 2014, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and on July 28, 2014, she received the National Medal of Arts and Humanities. In 2019, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame jointly with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, recognizing their work together as the group Trio, and was named one of five recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors that same year.

After 2000, Ronstadt reduced her performing activity as her singing voice began to deteriorate. She released her final solo album in 2004 and her final collaborative album in 2006, and gave her last live concert in 2009. Following her retirement announcement in 2011, she disclosed that she was no longer able to sing due to a degenerative condition initially diagnosed as Parkinson's disease and later identified as progressive supranuclear palsy. She published her autobiography, Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir, in September 2013, and a documentary based on her memoirs, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, was released in 2019. She has continued to make public appearances and speaking engagements in the years since her retirement.